Coronavirus — Unemployment Claims Surge, Trump Won’t Lockdown Again

More than 1.6 million cases and nearly 97,000 deaths have been reported in the United States.

President Trump said on Thursday that if a second wave of outbreaks occurs in the United States, he will not urge a national lockdown again.

All 50 states in the United States have either eased or lifted lockdowns under economic pressure, or never imposed them at all.

Many American companies closed or went bankrupt due to the coronavirus pandemic, and Americans flocked to the government to apply for unemployment benefits. However, the federal government is worried that the unemployed population will continue to expand, and plans to reduce unemployment subsidies to encourage people to return to the job market.

The COVID-19 pandemic spread to the United States on January 19, 2020. As of May 20, the United States has the most confirmed deaths (96,902) and cases (1.6 million) in the world.

Since the outbreak of the New Coronavirus epidemic, it has spread to 196 countries around the world, with more than 5.1 million people infected and more than 336,000 deaths. That includes more than 1.6 million cases and nearly 97,000 deaths in the United States.

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that if a second wave of outbreaks occurs in the United States, he will not urge a national lockdown again. He made these remarks while visiting the Ford automobile manufacturing plant in Michigan. “People say that’s a very distinct possibility. It’s standard. And we’re going to put out the fires. We’re not going to close the country. We’re going to put out the fires,” Trump told reporters.

“A permanent lockdown is not a strategy for a healthy state or a healthy country. Our country wasn’t meant to be shut down,” the president said. “A never-ending lockdown would invite a public health calamity. To protect the health of our people we must have a functioning economy.”

On Thursday, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that more than 2.4 million people were affected by business failures last week, and applied for unemployment benefits from the government. The number of applicants thus climbed to 38.6 million.

At the same time, Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) are discussing ways to reduce unemployment benefits affected by the epidemic to encourage Americans to find jobs. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) said that the Republican Party and the White House are forming a consensus, and hope that the new coronavirus epidemic unemployment subsidy will not be an obstacle to people’s return to employment.

News sources reported that Columbia University researchers found that if the United States began to implement social distancing measures a week earlier, in mid-March, it would have saved about 35,000 lives. The research team used computers to apply many different models to simulate the past.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics and serves as a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System.

The team found that if the US government had acted earlier to prevent the spread of the epidemic, 61% of the 700,000 confirmed cases, and 55% of the 65,000 deaths, reported on May 3 could have been prevented. The research team said that this study proves how high the risk is of an early lifting of the lockdowns.

All 50 states in the United States have either eased or lifted lockdowns under economic pressure, or never imposed them at all. Even President Trump has encouraged states to “Reopen America.” However, experts believe that the government still needs to continue to promote public awareness of the crisis.

Regarding the results of this study, President Trump said in an interview with Global News on May 21, that he acted very early, he acted earlier than anyone thought. Trump said Columbia University is very “liberal,” so this study is likely to be used only to combat his political means.

“While new claims have leveled out — and have now declined for seven straight weeks — they remain at extremely high levels even as the majority of states begin to re-open,” said Andrew Stettner, senior fellow for the left-leaning think tank The Century Foundation.

“Clearly, reopening the economy does not necessarily equate with robust rehiring. Among those 35 states, nine actually saw an increase in the number of new workers claiming benefits, including Florida, which added almost 1 million new claims,” Stettner said.

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